Research News

UB to host Chinese philosophy conference

By PATRICIA DONOVAN

UB will host the 18 International Conference of the Society for
Chinese Philosophy (ISCP) July 21-24 in the Center for the Arts,
North Campus, and in the Ramada Hotel and Conference Center
adjacent to the North Campus in Getzville.

“Using a cross-cultural comparative approach, the
conference will explore in detail and depth the Chinese conception
of philosophy as the ‘learning of living’ to enrich our
understanding of this field and contribute to its revival,”
says conference director Jiyuan Yu, UB professor of philosophy.

“This is one of the largest conferences ever held by the
ISCP and will feature 106 speakers representing every continent,
including Africa, where once the teaching of Chinese philosophy was
rare. Among our speakers are many of the finest scholars in this
field.

“Today,” Yu says, “the ISCP is in every corner
of the world, promoting the study of Chinese philosophy. Many
colleges and universities are adding this to their curriculums, are
hiring instructors in this field, an encouraging sign. This
conference is meant to further promote the development of the study
of Chinese philosophy in the U.S.”

Yu says that one major characteristic of Chinese philosophical
tradition is that it is not just a matter of theoretical pursuit,
but a more practical enterprise. Philosophy is considered to be a
“learning of living” and “doing” philosophy
is to practice a way of life that one chooses in order to cultivate
and transform character

“The central question of the Chinese philosophy is,
‘what is the Dao?’—that is, what is the road we
should follow in leading our lives?” Yu explains. “This
conception of philosophy differs from the prevailing modern
university conception of philosophy, which holds it to be a
theoretical discipline and considers philosophical reflection
peripheral to life.”

Conference sub-themes will include practical wisdom; moral
psychology; formation of self, character and virtue; philosophical
discourses and their practicality; happiness, death and suicide;
politics and the way of living; philosophical therapy and spiritual
practice; comparisons between the “way of living” as
conceived of in the Chinese, Greek and Jewish traditions; and a
presentation of the methodology of comparative study in this
field.

Robert C. Neville of Boston University, internationally
recognized scholar of comparative philosophy and the philosophies
of religion, theology, ethics and politics, and a prolific author
of many books, including two books in the SUNY Series in Chinese
Philosophy and Culture: “Ritual and Deference: Extending
Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context” (2009) and
“Boston Confucianism: Portable Tradition in the Late-Modern
World” (2002).

Michael Slote, professor of ethics at the University of Miami
(Fla.), and author of many articles on philosophy of mind, ethics
and political philosophy. He is the author of “From Morality
to Virtue” (1992), “Morals from Motives” (2001)
and the forthcoming “Moral Sentimentalism,” and is
widely recognized as a leading figure in the renewed field of
virtue ethics, which draws on the concept of an ethics of
care.

Chung-ying Cheng, professor of philosophy, University of
Hawaii, Manoa, an internationally known philosopher of East-West
integration and a leading representative of neo-Confucian
philosophy in the contemporary world. A very prolific author in the
field of Chinese philosophy—and the philosophy of Chinese
management—he is the founding president of ISCP and has
received many distinguished academic honors.

David Wong, Susan Fox Biescher and George D. Beischer Professor
of Philosophy at Duke University, where he is working on a
book on the classical Chinese thinkers Mencius, Xunzi and Zhuangzi,
and on the relations between practical reason, desire and emotion.
He is the author of many books, essays and journal articles in his
field; one of his concerns is the relevance of Chinese-Western
comparative philosophy moral values and moral differences across
and within societies.

Vincent Shen, professor of East Asian studies at the University
of Toronto, whose primary research interest is in the area of
Chinese philosophy, specifically Daoism and Confucianism. His
secondary research interests are comparative philosophy,
phenomenology and philosophical problems of technology, culture and
religion. Shen is widely published in the field of eastern and
specifically Chinese philosophy, and is the former president and
now the executive director of the ISCP.

Shun Kwong-loi, professor and chair, Department of Philosophy,
Sin Wai Kin Professor of Chinese Culture, and head of New Asia
College, Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is former professor
and dean of the undergraduate division of the University of
California at Berkeley and vice-president of the University of
Toronto. Kwong-loi’s principle research project is a
multivolume work in Confucian ethics that he began in 1988. The
first volume, “Mencius and Early Chinese Thought,” was
published by Stanford University Press in 1997. A manuscript of the
second volume, “Zhu Xi and Later Confucian Thought”
(tentative title), has been completed and is currently under
revision.

Bryan Van Norden, professor and chair of the Department of
Philosophy, and adjunct in the Department of Chinese and Japanese
at Vassar College. He has broad interests in Chinese literature and
Western philosophy, and in particular, ethics. His most recent
books are a textbook, “Introduction to Classical Chinese
Philosophy” (2011), a translation, “Mengzi with
Selections from Traditional Commentaries” (2008) and the
monograph “Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early
Chinese Philosophy” (2007).

Welcoming addresses will be presented by Stephen Dunnett, vice
provost for international education; Bruce E. Pitman, dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences; David Herschenov, chair of the
Department of Philosophy; Jorge Gracia, SUNY Distinguished
Professor and Samuel P. Capen Chair I Philosophy at UB; and Jie
Zhang, director of the Buffalo State College Center for China
Studies.

Conference sponsors are the UB Department of Philosophy, the
Samuel P. Capen Chair in Philosophy and Comparative Literature at
UB and the Buffalo State College Center for China Studies.
Co-sponsors are UB’s Confucius Institute, Humanities
Institute, College of Arts and Sciences, Office of the Vice Provost
for International Education, Department of Classics and Asian
Studies Program.

The Department of Ophthalmology has once again received an
unrestricted grant from Research to Prevent Blindness to continue
its laboratory-based and clinical research exploring vision
processes and disease.

Led by Shermali Gunawardena, new research into how the
brain functions has revealed some of the potential causes while
opening up potential new routes to future prevention of disorders
like Alzheimers Disease.

NSF CAREER winner and associate professor of electrical
engineering, Tommaso Melodia, is using ultrasound to create new
wireless sensors that can be used to treat diseases like diabetes
and heart disease in real time.

Improving Women's Health

12/3/14

UB is one of four regional centers for the NIH-funded
Women’s Health Initiative, the groundbreaking
investigation into women’s health and healthy aging.